The summary execution was delivered without a speech from the scaffold by any of the condemned. Mr. Duffy was not in the Senate because of health issues, Mr. Brazeau stormed out of the chamber when his suspension was confirmed, while Ms. Wallin said, voice cracking, that “it’s an extremely sad day for democracy.”

The Conservative leadership has succeeded in removing the platform all three senators have been using to tell their side of the story.

Related

But, given the keen interest of the RCMP in the file, it is unlikely to be the last we hear from the three. The Mounties are on the trail of the chain of emails that may support Mr. Duffy’s defence — a search that may widen the investigation and provide “evidence of criminal wrongdoing by others,” according to a letter sent by an RCMP officer to Mr. Duffy’s lawyer.

There is also an Auditor-General’s report into the expenses of all senators due next year. If, as expected, it reveals many more senators were taking advantage of non-existent expenses rules, the votes to suspend the three former Conservative caucus members will take on even greater import. Claude Carignan, the government leader in the Senate, said the suspension vote would indeed set a precedent for future transgressors.

Earlier, Question Period was once again dominated by NDP leader Tom Mulcair subjecting Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a grilling about his role in the Duffy-Wright affair.

“Why won’t the Prime Minister own up to his own responsibility, instead of saying he ‘couldn’t care less’?” asked Mr. Mulcair.

Mr. Harper again maintained he did not know about the deal between Mr. Duffy and Nigel Wright, his former chief of staff, to “deceive Canadians.”

Nothing new was added to the sum of human knowledge, except perhaps that the names of Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Justice Minister Peter MacKay should supplement the list of the people about whose opinions the Prime Minister “couldn’t care less”. (Both men defended Mr. Wright last week, in what was widely viewed as a signal to Mr. Harper that he had gone too far in demonizing his former chief of staff.)

But the fixation on the Senate is having a deleterious effect on almost everything else happening at the federal level.

We in the media are ignoring, or giving less space to, more important but less salacious stories. Neil Maxwell, the interim environment commissioner said Tuesday the government’s poor environmental record is harming the ability to export crude oil and natural gas. He referred to “the wide and persistent gap between what the government commits to do and what it is achieving.” The story was eclipsed by the Rob Ford-Mike Duffy circus.

Those who have to deal with the feds, or even worse are funded by them, are finding it increasingly hard to get anyone’s attention.

The National Association of Friendship Centres was in Ottawa Tuesday to make its case for more funding and the renewal of the $27-million Urban Aboriginal Strategy announced in the 2012 budget. This is a decision that has to flow through cabinet and Treasury Board well in advance of next April.

It’s hardly the stuff of headlines but, thanks to the self-imposed prorogation, the government is already behind schedule in taking care of its routine business. Nearly 300 community organizations that rely on NAFC funds are now anxious about their own financial lifeblood after April 1 – and that scenario is being replicated across the whole of government.

Even with the three senators gone, the opposition is likely to keep hammering at the government. And the government will be hammering right back.

Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader, said he would prefer senators from his caucus abstain from the suspension motion vote, rather than “defend these three people who have abused the public purse and the public trust.” In the event, only a handful of his senators listened to their leader’s advice — just 13 senators abstained from the vote to suspend Mr. Brazeau and a number of those were Tories.

Mr. Trudeau has just released a new television advertising campaign talking about his priorities — “an economy that benefits all, not just the few.” The Harper government makes similar claims about governing for the benefit of the middle classes. But the reality is that all sides are engaged busily in a political knife-fight. The actual process of government appears to be nobody’s priority, marked as it is by inertia and stupor.